Destiny's Pet
by wryter501
Summary: Part 1 - the mistress keeps a monster in the pit of her dungeon. Part 2 - the matron knows everything that happens on her cell block. Part 3 - Wyrda trains two pups to fight as a pair. A satirical treatise on the heartlessness of destiny in fictional form, featuring Merlin's 'loved and lost'.
1. Will

**Destiny's Pet**

 **A/N: This is a new genre for me: Satire, and Allegory. The characters are figurative rather than literal, if you know what I mean. Please keep this in mind as you read…**

 **This fic is set up in four chapters, plus an epilogue, each chapter dedicated to a character (as titled). Each chapter is divided into three sections (following the maid, matron, hag personas of the triple goddess, or the fates) which are distinct from each other within a chapter, but related to the other chapters. For instance, each facet 1 follows one 'story', each facet 2, and 3, tied together by quotes from the relevant episode in italics. Hopefully not too confusing…**

 **Also, warning. This fic is (mostly) like a cup of yesterday's coffee – dark, cold, and bitter.**

 **Chapter 1: Will**

 **Facet 1**

 _(freond_ : v. to honor, like, love a friend. Old English.)

Freond was marked as a young boy. Claimed by the young mistress, gorgeous and cold and supreme in her caprice. Perhaps for the compassion in his heart, the understanding and empathy. Perhaps it was simply that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He was a young man still, when he was taken. Quite suddenly, and without warning, during a bandit's raid on his village.

 _Make the most of this day, it will be your last._

I should have kept running, he mused to himself, in a surprisingly composed way, as he was lowered into the pit.

The fraying ropes, biting into his flesh where they bound him, were his sole support as his weight dragged him down. Into a darkness that breathed a wet foul stench, with a pestilential catch in a slimy throat.

I was out. I was away. And yet, and yet…

It wasn't who he was, after all, young Freond. Marked for destiny's pet, it was inevitable, really. This capture.

 _You've just signed our death warrant._

He felt he was descending into water, not air, the silty murk compressive as the cave, the dungeon, the lair swallowed him.

Whose choice? Maybe it didn't matter.

 _Maybe it's meant to be this way._

Dead was dead, and the mistress was not to be denied her pleasure. And so the young man went to feed her pet.

His feet touched rock, and slipped. He was lowered still further to his knees.

 _Come out, come out, wherever you are._

He tried to struggle, to cry out, when the creature reached him – touched him – tore into him - but the ropes held him. The rush of blood - warm and sticky and copper-sweet over the tattered remains of his shirt – weakened resolve and voice and muscle, torn from bone.

Screaming. But it wasn't him, screaming.

 _Something's gone wrong._

The ropes dissipated, an illusion of freedom as life dripped away, slippery on the rough rock.

He was on his back. Looking up. There was a dot of daylight, far away. Beckoning, promising, taunting. There was movement near that dot, and with conscious intent, the figure twitched into identification.

Another prisoner, chained to the wall. An emaciated live-skeleton with indefinable rags for a travesty of clothing, hollow skull eyes blazing with an agony of hope.

Then light and companion both were obscured by a grinning-demon visage, a slavering maw exhaling filth and decay, drooling acid over face and neck and chest and into Freond's torn flesh, pooling like liquid agony. And the ragged bloody lips pulled back over crooked broken fangs in a bestial grin of sadistic satisfaction before the massive head bent to finish the meal.

Freond heard his bones crack and his viscera pull and tear as the rest exploded in obliterating fire – and he was quite sure it wasn't him screaming…

* * *

 **Facet 2**

The prison was clean, light and airy. Each cell separated from the next, and the walkway, by a series of slender floor-to-ceiling bars, reinforced by horizontal rods, and flooded with sunlight from generous windows at each end of the rows. All day the brilliance drifted across the bare swept floor as the sun moved outside, an unseen power bound also to routine, throwing the lines of inescapable shadow that pinned their movement from a dance to a burdened crawl, dawn to sundown.

It was still a prison.

And no one felt it more keenly that morning than the last dragonlord. A young man who – shocking temerity – had attempted to escape. Had dared to think he could, and had actually tried.

So he was being moved to a new cell. Tighter security.

Down the walkway – another enclosed, locked space, just of a different shape and size – behind the Matron, he couldn't help glancing into the cells he passed. Inmates who, for the most part, had grown so accustomed to the bars they neither noticed nor minded them. Neither noticed nor minded him.

Except…

One young girl. Sitting alone in a corner of sunlight, plying needle and thread in some task of sewing. She was slender and small, brown dress, brown hair, unremarkable from a hundred others just like her, but for the green scarf folded demurely over her hair. A scrap of color, of individuality retained, without defiance or offense. And she was humming, as their steps brought them to her cell.

And she looked up. Looked at him – exhausted and despondent and hopeless – and smiled.

His step faltered, slowed.

And the prison Matron who was leading him, noticed. Noticed the girl's smile and kind brown eyes, and his interest. His yearning, maybe, to know more of someone who could still hum, in this place.

The Matron stopped. And with a jingle of keys from her belt, unlocked the door of the girl's cell.

"In here," she drawled. Amusement and sarcasm were audible in her tone.

And if the dragonlord had been thinking clearly – and not so desperate to replace what he had lost in his attempted escape – he would have questioned her choice. To reward him? With such possibilities he had thought forfeit, after his attempt – friend… home, family?

The dragonlord went inside. And the girl in the green scarf stood to meet him. To welcome him.

He should have known better. Should have expected less from the Matron, not more.

In the morning, guards came to move him. To harry him to his new cell – somewhat less clean and airy and light, and solitary – his shoulders bowed under the punishment of loss and memory.

What he wanted – love and comfort and companionship and acceptance and absolution – what he had for a short, wondrous, brilliant time. What he could never have again. The knowledge that the girl suffered the same, because of him, was an additional punishment. He accepted his incarceration, and retreated still further into himself from the physical constraints of his cell.

So it came to be that the warlock was born into captivity, though it was a cell that was light and airy and clean, to a mother who wore a green scarf over her brown hair and hummed as she sat and sewed. Though her eyes were sad, she could not regret the opportunity for kindness and love.

As the warlock grew, he made a friend of the boy in the next cell. They laughed, they played, they teased and tricked, though always the friend was irritated by the limitations the bars between them placed upon their fun.

The day the Matron came to transfer the warlock to another cell block, the mother made no protest. Perhaps she thought he might – by a trick of orders, or only chance which serves neither destiny nor chaos – be placed near enough his father that the dragonlord might know the satisfaction and happiness to be had in being parent to this son.

Perhaps she thought, if her boy experienced another cell, he might realize his true condition instead of overlooking it – although then, the despair of his father was just as real a possibility as the chance of the warlock's attaining freedom at last.  
Perhaps she thought, trading one cell for another, with new neighbors and companions, interests and concerns, might be enough freedom, that he never would consider himself a prisoner, and if his spirit could be free – perhaps that would be enough for all of them.

 _I just didn't fit in anymore. I wanted to find somewhere that I did._

The day the Matron came to transfer the warlock, he kissed his mother goodbye and went eagerly, excited as a child to see new places and meet new people. His stride lengthened, unknown to him, down the walkway that was so much longer than any of the cells. Deceptively so, since it was still enclosed, and locked.

"This is for you," the Matron said, as he entered the new cell.

Two old men stood there, each with a set of wrist- and ankle-chains, though only one of them appeared to notice or mind. Between them they held a creature like the warlock had never seen before. It shifted in the sunlight, and he could not tell whether the wings were rainbow gossamer or tattered leather, whether the skin was softest velvet or rough scale. It cocked its head and looked at him and he knew it was his, and wasn't sure whether to be excited or frightened.

"What am I to do with it?" he said, not reaching to take the creature into his own arms. The two old men set it on the floor.

"Do as you will," the Matron said, sounding bored. "Ignore it, train it, love it, hate it - it matters little to anyone but you. It will be yours regardless."

"Be careful," one of the old men whispered, not unkindly, brushing past him as he exited the cell.

"They can be troublesome things," the other said, twitching at his cuffs and chains, kicking out ineffectually at the Matron and her guards as he too left the warlock alone in his cell.

And the warlock never noticed the cell door closing behind him, the Matron pocketing the key with a satisfied smile on her face.

There were many new people to meet, in the cells adjoining his, which took much of his attention away from his uneasy new pet - which he didn't understand and felt no affection for, and wasn't even sure how to care for. Sometimes he wondered why he was alone, if he would be allowed a cellmate at some point, or if it depended upon the behavior of the growing creature who shared his space, before deciding it didn't matter. Surely his solitude was temporary, and in any case, his nearest companion, the blind prince, was far more fascinating.

Fascinating, irritating, magnetic.

It was the blind prince who first taught the warlock about the bars that defined destiny's prison. Because he was a prince, his were all named.

The first one, he said, is Because-I-Am-A-Prince-We-Can't-Be-Friends.

The warlock only laughed, touched the gray iron bar, and it vanished in the blink of an eye and the twinkle of golden motes.

It was good thing the prince was blind. He might have hated his cell-mate, else, before he learned to love him. But ever after, the blind prince felt for that one missing bar in a genial sort of confusion.

 _Whatever happens out there today, please don't think any differently of me._

They talked, they argued, they laughed. They didn't play, though sometimes they fought. Sometimes they teased, and always they tricked.

Almost the warlock forgot the pet that was his responsibility. It grew slowly, and never seemed to enjoy the attention it occasionally demanded. The warlock fell into the routine of giving it what it seemed to need, and leaving it alone, else. It shifted when he looked at it, shape and color, beautiful to ugly, and the temperament was nearly impossible to ascertain at any given moment. It seemed indifferent to him, as well.

Though the prince had identified the bars of the cell for the warlock for the first time, he didn't truly mind them. At first. He had freedom in his cell, to move and exercise, he was provided for and cared for. He was occupied, always, and slept peacefully exhausted at night.

But then. One night he woke startled to find his boyhood friend just outside his cell.

 _It's good to see you again. How have you been?_

"I've had enough, I'm out of here," his friend whispered. "Come with me, why don't you?"

"How do you know out there is any better than in here?" he responded.

"I have no reason to stay," the friend said, and bent to begin picking the lock.

 _This place has been boring without you…_

The warlock left his hard prison bed and his single blanket, out of curiosity and a sense of responsibility. A sense of danger, and responsibility. "But I do," he argued. "My prince – my friend."

His pet, curled in the corner, stirred and rose and padded forward, trailing tail and wings.

"Your friend? I could hear him all the way down at the end of the row earlier, hollering."

"He doesn't mean it, it's just his way," the warlock explained. "I can't go without him, though."

"Well, hurry up, bring him along."

The warlock went to the place where the bar named Because-I-Am-A-Prince-We-Can't-Be-Friends was missing, and attempted to reach the blind prince. "Wake up."

The prince stirred.

"What is it?" he slurred sleepily.

"There's someone here, a friend of mine, and he –"

Voices rose suddenly. Men's voices, loud and angry, confident and strong and the warlock shuddered.

"Come on, hurry!" his friend begged, as the lock clicked the door of the warlock's prison swung open.

The pet-creature swelled, tipping its soft-lumpy head upward, and bayed, a sound the warlock had never heard from it before.

 _There's one, get him! Kill him!_

Other prisoners heard it, felt it in their sleep, rolled over and pulled blankets closer. The mother heard it, and shivered. Lights flashed and the friend crouched in the doorway screamed in sudden terror.

And the warlock could not cross the cell in time, it happened too quickly.

 _It can't be done. The odds are too great._

He was still turning from his prince when the scaly shadow-creature sailed through the guards' torchlight, stumpy wings playing the bars of the cell row like a fingernail on the teeth of a comb.

The friend was down almost before he knew he'd been hit. Caught trying to escape, trying to free the warlock – though if the warlock realized his part in his friend's fate, it was only subconsciously – and executed.

… _It was good to see you again._

He lay bleeding on the walkway, bleeding and dying in a space that was shaped with the illusion of freedom. The warlock on his knees, reached through the bars but ineffectually, as his pet breathed on the back of his neck and drooled the red of the friend's blood onto his hand, bracing his weight on the stone floor.

The Matron stood at the end of the row, running her fingers over her keys as the warlock cried.

* * *

 **Facet 3**

 _(wyrd:_ n. fate, chance, fortune, destiny. Old English.)

Wyrda followed the wolfhound Balinor. Had been following him, all his life, like his fathers before him, but with a bit more interest.

She wondered, when he was young, if she should choose him. And Uther. But there was something off about the pairing. Some mismatch of traits, some weakness in the genes.

It might be good to blend the pureblood with a little hardy peasant stock, for this one. Since the other pup had already come mewling and blinking into the world, she couldn't delay long. There was a perfect female in this village, too – young and unconnected, caring and sympathetic – patient and humble. Wyrda hoped those traits would breed to the pup. No use having a rare champion too proud to risk himself, after all.

The mating went as Wyrda had planned, in the little village in the dark behind closed doors. But she didn't think it would do the pup any good to be raised with the sire's influence – Balinor was entirely too cynical already, too sharp. Twice on the road he'd hesitated and looked toward her as if he could _see_ her.

She called the king's mastiffs, then, and their baying flushed Balinor, giving him a good enough scare, she thought she probably didn't have to worry about his return.

Wyrda left Ealdor alone for a time. No use hovering until the pup was weaned and could leave his dam.

But the bond between dam and pup was strong – she'd intended it so, that was the peasant stubbornness. So little they had, they clung the more fiercely to it. By Wyrda was canny and experienced – putting young Merlin in the right place at the right time with one of the other village pups and it was obvious to anyone with an eye for breeding that Merlin was _different_. It scared the mother, so she was ready to let go – for his sake, she thought.

That made Wyrda smile.

I can't keep him, Wyrda heard Hunith's thought. In the little village, in the dark of the last night before an escape, this time planned. Behind the closed door of her home. I can't keep him, either.

Wyrda watched the dam curl around her pup in the box-bed, watching firelight flicker across the bone structure of the pup's face and his sleek black pelt as he slept. He was perfect – misleadingly delicate, he would be underestimated in every match Wyrda set him to. And she had many planned.

"You can't keep him," she whispered to Hunith. "But his glory and his pain – that will be yours forever. A mother's curse."

In the morning, Wyrda slipped the leash over the pup's head, and walked him to Camelot. Barely she could hold him back, so eager he was, and she smiled at his youthful exuberance, ready to start his training, herself.

Docile, he was not. He snapped a bit at the leash when it caught between his oversize puppy feet or pinched the tender skin around his neck. He snapped at the other pup she'd paired him with too; Arthur was a bit older and so intent on his training he needed a little astonishment to shake him up. Make him lighter on his toes, make him more aware of his surroundings, and possible threats. He was a little too inclined to rest on his own breeding and training, too – Wyrda wanted Arthur reminded that a halfbreed might give him a run for his money.

But, all in all she was pleased with how the two handled the matches she brought to them. They fought well together, even if they couldn't seem to stop snapping and tumbling over each other outside the fighting ring. Wyrda didn't try to stop them – they never hurt each other really, and it kept them in good shape to face outside threats.

One day, though, Hunith came to Camelot, drawing Wyrda's attention. That mother-son bond again, she'd have to take that into more serious consideration. It was one of the things that kept Merlin strong on the inside.

A pack of wolves, it seemed, threatened his birthplace. Wyrda shrugged. Not exactly a planned match, but it would be good practice for the two pups. And a chance to see how they performed in less structured conditions.

 _This is your home. If you want to fight to defend it, that's your choice. I'd be honored to stand alongside you._

One thing she noticed. The purebred pup sniffed a bit around the sweet mongrel female, one of the two that followed Wyrda's pair. She watched them, and shrugged over that, too. They looked nothing alike – no telling what the product of that mating would be – but she supposed a bit of mutt hardihood in the royal bloodline couldn't hurt.

Perhaps she could present the opportunity for mating to the yellow-haired bull-pup as a reward. In a few years, though; they were both young, yet.

 _I have faith in you… we all do._

Then the wolves came, howling. Predictably.

Wyrda strolled the street up and down, keeping an eye on her two pups – who fought well, and she was satisfied. This time Merlin showed a bit of aggression to finish the fight, and Wyrda's eyebrows lifted.

 _You fight for your homes. You fight for your family. You fight for your friends._

"Well done," she complimented him, clapping her hands thrice.

Only – that bit of unexpectedness took her attention from Arthur. Just at the moment when the dying alpha of the wolf pack snapped at the pup's jugular.

Wyrda casually put her foot out and kicked one of the village hounds – vaguely noticing it was the one she'd made use of before, the comparison that had weaned Merlin from his mother – right into the wolf's jaws, instead. The pup squirmed and snapped, but she'd ruined his balance, and the old wolf reacted instinctively.

 _I saw how desperate things were becoming. I had to do something._

The pup whimpered, twitched, and went still, moments after the wolf expired.

Merlin whined, nosing his pack-mate, trying, in the way pups had, to prompt him back to life with his desire that it should be so, and his confusion that he was being denied. He whined again, squirming against the cooling body of the other pup.

"He's dead," Wyrda told him. "Come on, we've done what we came here for. Let's go home."

 _If you fall, you fall for the noblest of causes, fighting for your very right to survive._

Compassion and stubbornness, the traits she'd hoped to breed in him, were stronger than she thought. He didn't bounce right back up, panting eagerly for another trip, another match, but nosed again at the dead carcass of the mongrel pup.

"Get him up," Wyrda told Arthur.

 _I'm sorry. I know he was a close friend._

Who trotted obediently to his fighting-partner, obviously at a loss to understand the dumb animal grief. Arthur cocked his head at the two – one alive, and one dead – and tried the only thing he knew to do with Merlin. He nipped at him, rousing him with the instinct to prevent a reoccurrence, snapping again, still uncomprehending why his mate wouldn't tumble and snarl like normal.

"All right, let's go," Wyrda told them. "There'll be other matches. And you," she added to Merlin, "better get used to other dogs dying in the ring."

Arthur lolled his tongue and wagged his tail, ready to return to his kennel and start again the next day.

 _You have to go, Merlin. You belong at Arthur's side. I've seen how much he needs you… how much you need him. You're like two sides of the same coin._

Merlin shook himself, shook off the road dust, and gave her one reproachful glance, before trotting after Arthur.

"Well!" Wyrda said to herself. "Guess _I'd_ better keep an eye on _you_."

 _When the time is right, the truth will be known. Until then, you must keep your talents hidden. It's better for everyone._

 **A/N: The italics are quotes from ep.1.10 "The Moment of Truth".**

 **It's different – I know! Just… be as kind as possible?**


	2. Freya

**Chapter 2: Freya**

 **Facet 1**

 _(fria_ : verb, to love. Old English.)

Every young girl anticipates love, the sweet delicate fragrant blossom of romance and promise and possibility, especially in springtime. It was a sort of hope.

And Fria was no different.

Unfortunately. It was not love that found her, teased open by gentle warmth and perfect seasonal timing, but lust. Rough and greedy in the dark and shadow of night, ripping clothing like petals, demanding a surrender of pollen and nectar, plundering by brute force.

 _There was a man. He attacked me._

But, every rose has its thorn.

Instinct. Self-defense. Shock and terror and – the only way out. Slapping the unwelcome invader, it may be.

 _I didn't mean to hurt him, but I thought he was going to kill me._

One free breath.

Then the curse.

 _His mother was a sorceress, and when she found out that I'd killed her son, she cursed me to kill forevermore._

Denying love forever. No more sweetness, no more warmth, no more light. Trapped forever in the darkness of blood and lust and violence. No longer the victim, where innocence – tattered and soiled and ruined maybe – could be maintained.

Fria was now the invader, the murderer, the monster.

Perhaps that was why she was put into the cave-dungeon. Perhaps it was coincidence, blind chance which serves neither destiny nor chaos. Perhaps it was the mistake of the fat, stupid bounty hunter who'd caught Fria.

Regardless, the mistress – young and beautiful but completely apathetic to love and favor – took no notice of her until she entered the pit.

The filthy tatters of her clothing rippled and billowed like the wings of a night hunter as she fell, but when she landed with a sob of pain and hopelessness, they immediately soaked up the noxious slime on the rough cave-floor. The air was barely breathable, and yet it breathed itself, in and out like a diseased heartbeat, though never stirring.

She sat up, trying to wipe her skin on the shredded rags that didn't cover her, dirt and bruises and fluid from her body and others', hugging twig-thin arms to skinny chest.

There was movement in the shadow, darker nearer the walls of the cave. Fria flinched, but the figure who moved toward her displayed uncertainty and apprehension – and she remembered. She was the monster, here.

The occupant whose prison she'd involuntarily entered was young, also. And thin and pale. And a boy, with gorgeous eyes that gleamed through the heavy murk and thick black hair that looked like it could be soft and silky…

 _Beautiful._

He reached for her, chains trailing behind him as he stretched, fingers trembling.

Not as the others had, with lust or disgust or fear or violence.

 _Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you._

With hope. Which is rather a selfish sort of love.

She had a moment to feel an answering spark. The bowels of this purgatory might not be so bad, if she and he had someone to share it with.

 _There must be something we can do._

And hope does nothing by half-measures.

That spark believed freedom possible. And love.

 _I've never known anyone like you._

She reached back.

Their fingertips touched.

 _You really don't realize how special you are, do you?_

Sharp agony slammed into her back without any warning, and her fingers fumbled out of his. The horror on his face drove the truth home with the solid cruelty of claw, the curved tip dripping with blood, or something, out from under the lowest rib on her right side – through her right side – skin blood viscera -

Dank exhalation on the back of her neck and the top of her shoulder, fluttering the torn pieces of her clothing. A chuckle, maybe, from the hell-bellows lungs of a monster unseen, a worse fiend than she'd ever been. Huffing, reveling in the ability to do so, as she gasped and choked on blood and shredded lung tissue.

Laughter rained down on them like cool acid, and the mistress who hadn't known of Fria's existence until she entered the hellhole said, Ah, ah, ah. He's mine.

 _No one escapes from me._

The last thing she saw was the tear on the prisoner's face.

* * *

 **Facet 2**

There was irony in the Matron's prison; it was cold and cruel.

It was many months before he saw the Matron again, after the death of the friend – which the blind prince had heard, and understood at least in part, because he reminded the warlock, "It was partly your friend's fault, he ought not to have broken the rules…"

Of course he saw her guards, and it wasn't seldom that he heard her voice, but out of sight is often out of mind, especially for the young.

The principle was the same, when applied to the pet-creature who skulked round the shadows at the edge of the cell. Maybe aware that its actions had not pleased or protected its master. Though the warlock could not bring himself to reassure the beast of his renewed favor with caress or attention, neither could he berate his pet.

It was partly his fault, too.

And again, at night. A mistake, maybe, a trick of the guards' inattention and absentmindedness. Because surely even the Matron would not be so cruel to a prisoner like the young warlock.

The key turned in the lock of the cell, and another prisoner was shoved inside with unceremonious force, casual brutality. The warlock turned just in time to leap across the space dividing them and catch her, to break her fall.

She was slim and petite, her head uncovered and her body almost so under her rags of clothing. Her brown eyes were kind but sad, and she had long forgotten how to hum.

The warlock was very like his mother, instantly welcoming the new prisoner as much as possible – food clothing warmth company caring – easing the sore despair of spirit that a fugitive wears like a diseased shroud.

 _You're not on your own anymore. I'm going to look after you. I promise._

The warlock was very like his father, instantly hoping, seeing the possibility of future happiness, unselfishly for both. Someone he could give love to, someone who would love him in return. It was the most precious commodity in all the prison. The only thing that makes life worthwhile.

They spent the night in each other's arms. Chaste, because the warlock was a gentleman. And because the girl – unlike the dragonlord – knew her time in his cell was limited. Knew she had to be gone in the morning.

 _You can't look after me. No one can._

"They will come for me, and they will kill me," she whispered to him in the dark, under the blanket he shared with her as generously as he shared his heart. "And rightly so. I have done things…"

The warlock interrupted her. "No, don't say that! I won't let them take you, I won't let them hurt you."

 _They won't find you here._

He spoke intently, but quietly, so he wouldn't wake the blind prince sleeping in the next cell. Because some shy instinct wanted to keep this – whatever this was, precious and sweet and delicate and new – secret. Because some shy instinct believed the prince, bound as he was by his named bars, wouldn't understand.

"We can get out of here, we can leave – my friend escaped his cell, it can't be that hard."

 _We can leave tonight as soon as it gets dark, and we'll be together._

She gave a little sniff, glancing toward the unseen beast as it stirred in the corner, and gathered the front of his shirt closer to her face with both hands. "We can't. They won't let me go. They'll follow us."

"I don't care." Low and rapid he spoke, passionately he spoke. "I want to be with you, and if it means leaving here, we're going to go. Trust me."

 _We'll go somewhere no one knows us, somewhere far away._

She nodded, forehead to his collarbone, and then she seemed to sleep.

In the morning, the prince woke and spoke, saying things that had no meaning, and yet still conveyed all the meaning in the world, as was their way.

The warlock put his finger to his lips to advise the girl to silence, and she nodded. He rose and crossed his cell to the prince's side, trying to carry their conversation as before, so the blind prince would not alert to the fact that someone else was there. Not yet. Trying to find a way to say goodbye.

"What's the matter?" the prince demanded, feeling for and finding a grip on his warlock friend. "You sound different. Is something bothering you?"

"No, yes – I mean, it's just –" Whatever explanation he might have voiced, truth or lie, was erased by another sound.

Voices. Marching feet. And both so terribly, agonizingly familiar.

"No!" he cried out, as the creature in the corner unfurled itself and bayed its blood-curdling hunting-note, slavering around the fangs in its mouth.

 _Whatever she is, and whatever she's done, she doesn't deserve to die!_

The warlock made to push away from the bars where he stood, the bars that separated him from his companion, but the blind prince held him fast, and his grip was strong. "What is it? What's happening?"

The key turned, the door swung open. The girl, cringing away from the fearsome creature, leaped in reaction for the obvious escape, only to be blocked at the last moment by one of the Matron's guards.

The expression on guard and beast was the same – identical delight in her pain and fear - and the warlock struggled to break free of his prince.

"No!" he roared.

And it caught the attention of the guard and the ugly-winged pet. For a moment of twin snarls.

He intended to throw himself at them, on them, overwhelm them by sheer willpower. And the strength of his love would win, and he would escape with the girl, hand in hand.

But the prince had a hold on him.

And the girl loved him, too much to let him try and risk and fail and fall.

She flung herself away from the guard. And toward the beast.

It was done in a moment. A flash of sword-sharp fang, a single deep fatal wound.

The guard grasped the thick leather collar of the beast, pulling it back from its victim, thick clawed toes scarring the stone floor of the warlock's cell.

And, conversely, the prince lifted the hand holding him back.

The warlock stumbled forward, bruising his knees, once again reaching for the broken, bleeding, dying body of someone he'd loved freely and fully, and it wasn't enough.

 _Somewhere with mountains… a few fields…_

"I would have – I would have –" he choked, not knowing quite what to say.

"I know," she whispered, reaching up to caress his face. Before her hand, damp with his tears, slipped to the floor, and her eyes closed for the final time.

 _wildflowers… a couple of cows… and a lake._

"I know," another voice echoed.

He'd bowed his head close over the girl's, still cradled in his arms, but raised it to see the Matron. Scratching the pet-creature behind its thick stumpy ears, as it leaned against her thigh. Her eyes were cold, piercing, indifferent, shrewd.

She'd known, somehow. What he planned. And perhaps the death of the girl had been an accident, and perhaps it had been part of the Matron's design, and perhaps it had been his fault.

"Pay attention to it," she advised, urging the creature back to its corner in the warlock's cell.

He bowed his head, submissive. No, he would not try to escape again.

"What happened?" the blind prince asked, when the girl's body had been taken, and they were alone again and all was silent.

The warlock shuffled on his knees to the water-bucket, trying with a dipper-full of clear liquid to wash the blood from his hands. "There was a fugitive, who fought back against the guards."

"Are you all right?" the prince demanded, on his feet and reaching through the gap between bars. "The fugitive didn't hurt you?"

 _She's gone. She's dead._

The warlock didn't answer, but shifted his seat on the stone floor so the prince could reach him yet again. And this time his friend's touch was gentle and understanding.

The warlock closed his eyes and felt the prince's love for him, need for him, and it was enough.

 _That's better…. Thanks._

* * *

 **Facet 3**

Back in Camelot, Wyrda amused herself contemplating the mating of the purebred pup Arthur and the dark female mongrel he sniffed around. Life went on, training went on.

Then one dark stormy night, she realized she'd lost her half-breed pup, whippet-slender Merlin with the silky black hair. She made a vexed sound to herself and set out to search Camelot – he couldn't have been gone long or have gotten far, in that case his partner would've gotten agitated in his own kennel.

But speaking of kennels, she noticed that the king's mastiffs were agitated, themselves – she caught a glimpse of a dainty feline face and the twitch of a long black tail disappearing down one of the rat-holes below the palace.

Following it around, she exclaimed in surprise to see a half-grown black kitten curled in a cozy nest with none other than her own missing Merlin.

 _I like you. With you I can just be who I am._

"You can't have her, you know," Wyrda told him. "You're a pup, she's a cat – and you were never intended for breeding."

Merlin lifted his head and looked right at her, then dropped it again to give the little cat's nose a fond lick.

 _I promised you I'd look after you, and I will. No matter what._

Her eyebrows rose. "Oh, you challenge me?" she added softly. "No, that won't do."

Reaching down, she snatched the half-grown kitten by the scruff of her neck – ignoring the piteous yowl – and lifted her out of the comfy safe nest her own special pup had scratched out. Careless for the cat's fate, she gave the little feline a fling.

The stray landed awkwardly in the crowd that had gathered, and fear and self-defense did the rest. Two of the citizens were mauled – and then one of the mastiffs who arrived sooner than the others. But the black kitten, even feral and fighting, was no match for the Camelot pack.

Wyrda noticed belatedly that the commotion had brought the yellow-haired bull-pup Arthur out of his kennel also – but it made no difference. He did as he'd been trained – as the mastiffs distracted the panicked kitten, he darted in to snap at her flank. Wyrda watched with complacent satisfaction –

Then cursed as Merlin darted in to snarl at his partner in clear and sudden warning.

Wyrda reacted instantly, giving the black-haired pup a kick in the ribs that had him sailing across the circle. Then she reached down for the injured kitten, and – as a trapper does with a live squirrel or rabbit captured – she placed her foot on the feline's head and gave the tail a decisive yank.

For a moment the carcass hung from her hand, then she gave it a toss and it slid across the ground to the half-breed pup Merlin. He scrabbled to get closer, then gave the dead face a feeble imploring lick.

 _There must be something I can do, some way to save you._

"Don't," Wyrda told him, pointing an imperative finger, "cross me again."

Merlin's tail tucked. The bull pup Arthur trotted to his side, sniffing as if to understand or comfort, then flopped down at Merlin's side and tucked his chin over his black-haired partner's scruff.

 _Something's been upsetting you, hasn't it._

Merlin laid his head on his paws – but his eyes and ears remained alert to Wyrda removing the carcass of the damned cat.

And she found herself glancing back at him more than once, though he made no move, or sound.


	3. Balinor

**Chapter 3: Balinor**

 **Facet 1**

 _(adreogan_ : who practices his love, bear suffer endure. Old English.)

Adreogan had been a warrior in his youth. Strong and skillful, clever and quick and – irony was cold and hard and heartless in its amusement – all in service to the mistress.

A betrayal had opened his eyes, had turned him away. Turned him into a hunted creature.

 _So he had them all rounded up and slaughtered… He lied to me! He betrayed me!... I was forced to come here, to this!_

And his strength and skill and intelligence and instinct had turned to self-preservation. Hide self, hide feelings.

In a cave not unlike this.

 _He will not welcome you… a cave's the best place for him._

The mistress never forgot him, though the search had not been active for years.

When Adreogan was found, he resisted. He tried to deny his identity, he refused to believe the proof.

 _I don't have a son._

I'm not. I can't. Not me.

It did no good, of course, the mistress was not to be denied her whimsical machinations. Down the hole he went.

Adreogan landed on his feet, in a ready fighting crouch, and the foul darkness gasped around him, the air clutching at him ineffectually like cold smoke like humid fog.

He moved fast, expecting an attack, and his foot disturbed a shuffle of bones. Swooping down, his fingers – thick and strong and scarred and fearless – found and claimed the best one for his purpose, long and slender and solid. He snapped it unhesitatingly in half and felt the sharp splintered end in satisfaction.

Now he was armed, and skilled in defending himself. It would be a long fight, and it would not end in surrender. Adreogan backed into the shadow, every sense alert.

But he was not alone.

Iron clinked on iron, on stone, a sound he knew well. A prisoner's chains. An innocent? An offender, as he admitted himself to be? Or something worse?

The air vibrated like the soggy slap of a failing heartbeat, the exhalation of contaminated phlegm.

He could make out nothing in the thick watchful gloom, no movement no shadows no eyes or fangs. Silent, he retreated – or advanced, perhaps, it was only a question of perspective and definition – and as he reached the wall, he received a shock.

His questing fingertips found a surface cool and hard and absolutely smooth, incongruous in a rough craggy pit like this. He glanced back – and there was movement –

Right. There.

Adreogan flinched, instinctively raising his makeshift weapon – so did the figure before him.

He froze. So did the figure before him.

Moving only his eyes, he examined the object chained to the wall. A mirror. A reflection.

Not quite.

Twenty years it had been, since he was slender rather than muscular. Twenty years since his chin so smooth. His hair so dark, unstreaked by gray. Pale skin not unmarred, but unwrinkled.

The figure reflected raised a hand – thin but strong scarred but scared – Adreogan's hand rose and ventured forward as well. Could such a thing be?

 _What if one of them was your son?_

Something fluttered in his chest, something that reminded him of blue skies and clear sunlight and the sound of clean trickling water and fresh air. Beginnings. Birth…

Far away, someone screamed and writhed in blood and other sticky fluids, ineffectually fighting the relentless spiral of life.

Irony was hard, and sharp, and inescapable, though not completely unexpected.

The monster materialized behind the youthful reflection, salivating through a razor-toothed grin, silent on pads and claws. Prowling one step at a time. Watching Adreogan as it advanced upon the boy he watched with summer in his heart.

The reaching fingers hard with desperate sinew tensed in warning, in one heartbeat destroying the greeting that begins.

 _Please, no._

His reflection wore the look of gaunt horror he could feel stretching the war-damaged skin and muscles of his own face. The blue eyes looked over his shoulder, and Adreogan knew.

Hope betrayed just as surely as disillusionment did.

The one moment of admitting possibility, of entertaining the thing with wings – tattered and ripped to bloody shreds like a moth-ravaged shroud, lifting soundlessly from the monster's crooked misshapen back in the reflection, stirring the air behind him also – had lowered his guard.

And sealed his death.

He felt it as a push on his lower back, innocuous accidental gentle. He stumbled forward a step – the reflection stumbled in tandem, each reaching simultaneous for the other – the flat silver surface evaporated and he felt the prisoner's body exactly like his own. Twenty years ago.

Adreogan knew. And he saw even further, as the warm numbness spread, up his spine and down his legs like blood released from the delicate webbing of a snare-net.

The reflected youth had been the death of him.

Which he didn't resent, but his death had not served to free the figure, only to ensure his demise as well.

 _I see you have your father's talent…_

One day perhaps soon, Adreogan mourned, as his legs gave way and the claw talon spine ripped away from the wound in his back and the slight young mirror-man had not the strength to hold him upright.

Because death was not a respecter of persons. Not youth nor pain nor every drop of Adreogan's blood spreading willing warm in a widening circle around them both. Would save this boy.

Though it was freedom of sorts, for him. He was leaving the dungeon-cave, after all…

* * *

 **Facet 2**

In his new cell, small and dark and dirty, the dragonlord heard a rumor.

It concerned the girl with the green scarf that he had loved so many years ago. It concerned her son the warlock, and the monstrosity that had been appointed his charge.

 _I don't know what it is to have a son…_

The dragonlord had accepted long ago the impossibility of escape, for him. There was no reason to try; there was barely reason to live. But for a son…

The Matron and her guards hadn't anticipated the friend's attempt, though it was clumsy and noisy and doomed from the start. The incident with the girl was a surprise, but not an unmanageable one.

 _Nor I a father…_

The dragonlord, however, was watched. He was the warlock's father, after all, and had a history of resisting the Matron's authority.

Nevertheless, the dragonlord was tough and clever and patient, and made it to the door of the warlock's cell without discovery. And inside, to wake his son by touch, not by sound. Keeping his eyes on the substantive shadow in the corner, whose eyes glittered back at the dragonlord.

 _Your mother never mentioned him?_

In spite of his surroundings and the conditions of his upbringing, the warlock was a trusting boy.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" he instinctively spoke in a whisper.

 _Why did you never return… We could've come with you…_

"I am your father. I came to give you what I could not earn for myself – freedom." He tugged at his son.

The warlock scrambled from his bed and blanket. "No, it won't work – it hasn't ever worked," he told his father. "I can't go – I don't know if you'll be able to get out of my cell, now." In spite of the door that was open on its hinges, and the silence in the air.

"Trust me," the dragonlord said. As the warlock had once said to the girl. "We'll escape." Both of them turned to look at the creature in the corner – motionless, watching them.

And the warlock dared to hope.

"Wait, Father – my friend, the prince. I can't leave him. He would be alone; he needs me, he's blind."

"Are you sure he wants to come with you?" the dragonlord returned. He had more experience with prisons and prisoners than his young son. "Are you sure you can get him past his bars?"

 _What are you waiting for? Fetch him!_

"This one has already been taken down between us," the warlock answered, going to the wall and reaching through to touch his friend. "Wake up!"

"What is it?" the prince grumbled in response. "It isn't morning yet, I don't feel the sun."

 _What is wrong with you today?_

The warlock hushed his companion. "Can you get through here? Just here, where this bar is gone? Can you squeeze through to my side?"

"Now why would I want to do that?" the prince continued, paying no attention to the suggestion of quiet. "Mine is the chamber of a prince, I have everything I want or need – I bet yours is smaller and colder and far less comfortable, hm?"

"Freedom," the warlock whispered. "Choices. Greatness."

For a moment the prince said nothing. Then, "What makes you think that's possible?"

"There's a man here, my father –"

Once again. Voices, lights. The chilling sound of inescapable fate. Because there is nothing that happens within the Matron's prison that she doesn't know about.

A rumble in the throat of the creature as it rose, the scrabble of its claws on the stone floor, the shuffle of moldy-leather wings unfolding. The full-throated hair-raising cry of the mindless, ever-hungry pet.

 _Careful, boy. I thought you might need some help. This is dangerous country._

"I can handle this," the dragonlord claimed, sinking into a crouch and spreading his arms as if to shield the boys, even empty-handed.

The warlock spat the curse of a much older man, and tugged at the prince. "Hurry hurry hurry! Come through now! We have to go!"

The prince yielded to his warlock's pleading, understanding at least that innocents needed defending, awkwardly tried to pass between the bars. But the way was too narrow, and the time too short. Firelight from the guards' torches licked the stone wall, as the guards rushed into sight.

The warlock turned as the creature leaped, to administer that single fatal bite, one crushing blow of fang or claw.

The dragonlord fell.

His son caught him, mostly, and opened his mouth to voice a cry of rage and pain and defiance at everyone else. "What do you want from me? I've done my best, the best that I know how, haven't I?"

 _Please. I can save you._

The pet retreated, cowed and uncomprehending.

For a moment the guards – and possibly the Matron – hesitated. As the son huddled over the father's dying body, helpless and hopeless and guilty. Then, two entered to separate the dead from the living, remove the dragonlord's body from the cell.

And lock the door behind them.

Silence reigned until morning. When the warlock felt the touch of his prince's hand.

 _What is it?... It's something. Tell me._

He turned, startled, to see that his fellow inmate had passed from his own cell. Another bar, the one the prince had called No-Man-Is-Worth-Your-Tears, had disappeared. He knelt behind the warlock, clumsily patting the friend he couldn't clearly see, but felt perfectly.

"What are you doing?" the warlock said, wearily. Now, when it was too late, free passage was made.

 _I can't do it alone…_

The prince smiled, though he could not quite meet the warlock's gaze with his own sightless eyes. "I didn't want you to feel like you were alone."

* * *

 **Facet 3**

In a cave under Camelot there was a tiger chained.

It was proscribed by law, to keep a wild animal within the confines of civilization, but it suited Wyrda's whim to keep the last one, to remind her of a failed attempt at taming it.

But, that blasted curiosity and compassion of the half-breed pup. She was beginning to regret those traits – and the intelligence, too.

"Oh, will you not behave," she chastised him, turning around too late to keep him from chewing through the tiger's restraints. "Now see what you've done."

The mastiffs did their best to corner and subdue the tiger, but had no experience or training with his like, before. And the chaos rather interrupted her training of the two matched pups.

"Now what, now what?" Wyrda mused, tapping wrinkled fingers on her wrinkled chin. Her attention was caught by Arthur trotting up to see what the mastiffs were up to – curious also in a helpful way. Merlin followed, as always, at his heels – if his partner was going to get in a fight, so was he. Wyrda smiled indulgently – she could be proud of that part of their training, at least.

Her smile turned thoughtful. Merlin's sire Balinor, he'd had experience with tigers. Was it worth tracking him down in whatever hole he'd dug for himself to pine away in?

 _If this man still exists, then it is our duty to find him._

Frantic barking and the snarling of the combatants decided her. The tiger showed no inclination to leave Camelot, but remained to harry the inhabitants like a wolf among sheep. She gave a sharp sigh, and rolled her eyes.

"Come, boys," she said, snapping her fingers. "I've a new scent for you to follow."

Not quite quick enough. The bull-pup had a gash across one shoulder from tooth or claw – but he trotted determinedly on, nose to the ground, despite Merlin's attempts to lick it clean as they traveled.

 _You must travel through the Forest of Merendra to the foot of Feorre Mountain. There you will find the cave where Balinor dwells._

Arthur was a good tracker, though, and before long they'd located Balinor's den. Arthur huffed and laid down at the entrance; Merlin nudged and licked and whined, but his partner wouldn't move.

The noise roused Balinor, and Wyrda watched, interested in spite of herself, as old dog met young pup.

 _The man you are going to look for is your father._

They circled warily a moment, they sniffed to identify each other. Balinor nosed curiously at Arthur, and Merlin growled in his throat – til Balinor proceeded to clean the gash in Arthur's shoulder thoroughly himself.

That did it. When Arthur roused, Merlin's tail wagged his whole slender body, demonstrating his readiness to accept Balinor as part of his pack.

"Slowly, now," Wyrda said. There had been reasons she'd kept the raising of Merlin from the bitter old dog, after all. "And we have to get back to Camelot, anyhow."

Halfway, they were surprised by another wolf pack.

A very minor reason Wyrda had trained her pair to be fighters – these annoyingly persistent lupine packs trespassing on her territory – but Arthur was the more aggressive of the two, and he'd been weakened. Balinor had not fought with either of the younger pair before, and he was an old dog. Perhaps the wolves sensed this; they closed on him more quickly than Wyrda could prevent. Quick snap through the jugular and it was all over; she cursed the complication.

But Merlin. That sweet nature bred from a mild-mannered dam ran deep, but below it was the temper of his tiger-fighting sire. Wyrda watched, rather impressed, as the slender black-haired pup came to life, for once surpassing Arthur's ferocity in chasing off the rest of the wolves.

Then, of course, whimpering and nuzzling round the body of his dead sire.

 _No, Father. No._

"Oh, for the love of Camelot," she snapped, "death is a part of life." She reached for his collar to drag him away.

Silently, the black-haired half-breed bared his teeth.

And she hesitated. Hating herself for the instinct, hating him a bit for causing it.

"Come on," she said, mostly to the bull-pup, placidly confused by his partner's mood. Again. "Come on, there's still a tiger to clear out of Camelot."

Arthur obediently rose and trotted to snuffle and urge Merlin along – silently and morosely his partner obeyed.

Wyrda watched him as they returned to Camelot. She couldn't tell if Merlin's melancholy might result with indifference to life or death when he faced his foe, but then she figured she needn't have worried.

 _I'm not going to sit here and watch._

When next they cornered the tiger, the circle of guard dogs was devastated with a single malevolent swipe of an enormous forepaw, but with Arthur in the thick of the pack of mastiffs, the lean black-haired half-breed leaped right over. To menace the tiger he had befriended to his teeth.

Hackles raised, teeth bared, snarling without cessation, Merlin dared to snap at the tiger's very nose.

 _When you speak to him as kin, he must obey your will._

The tiger – Wyrda suddenly remembered naming him Kilgarrah, when once it was her whim to make a pet of him also – sought escape to left and right, blocked by the terror that was a roused Merlin. Finally the great creature dropped and rolled to expose throat and belly.

"Go! Now!" Wyrda cheered. "Get him! Finish him off!"

Merlin sniffed the tiger; the tiger sniffed him. Then the black-haired pup dropped to his haunches; as the tiger rose and bound away, escaping into the night, Merlin looked at Wyrda. As if he knew, young pup and dumb animal that he was, that the tiger she'd urged him to kill was once a pet also.

 _I have shown you mercy, now you must do the same to others!_

As if he considered, what might happen one day when he and Arthur were discarded.

"You're meant to be the last and the greatest," Wyrda told him. Disconcerted, but she wouldn't admit it. "Why do you think I've spent so much time training you?"

Merlin rose from sitting and padded back to Arthur, who was stirring after the last attack of the tiger, stunned by a swipe of the great paw but otherwise uninjured.

 _You did it._

Arthur roused immediately with a squirm and a yelp, wagging his tail cheerfully at their victory. But Merlin paused in following the bull-pup back to the kennels, to give Wyrda a single backwards glance.

And his tail wasn't wagging at all.


	4. Arthur

**A/N: It's meant to be cold and harsh. Because that's how I feel Merlin was treated in the series, in this respect anyway. These three he loved and were irreplaceable – sole childhood friend, sole romantic interest, father – were taken from him so he would not be distracted from Arthur as his destiny. All well and good, in a tragic/heroic kind of way, I agree. Merlin accepts the loss as another sacrifice he's willing to make for Arthur, and doesn't blame him for his part in these deaths.**

 **And then. Instead of receiving any kind of reward for hard work and willing sacrifice, Arthur is taken. And Merlin loses the point of the destiny he's lost everyone else for. So, okay – bear with me through this chapter until the epilogue, por favor, s'il vous plait… (Thanks and leftover Halloween candy – it's still fresh – to those who are still reading/reviewing!)**

 **Chapter 4: Arthur**

 **Facet 1**

( _ferhth_ : soul's love, mental love. Old English.)

Ferhth was the prize.

The golden idol that shone like a beacon, casting glittery shadows for generations into the past, into the future, shimmering ripples to both sides as he strode through his days, touching those he met and those they met and everyone who heard of him and spread those stories on.

Ferhth. Unique and precious.

The mistress coveted him. Perhaps because, though he was in her service as all men were in her service, he still managed an air of independence.

Though he obeyed, he thought it was truly by choice. Which admitted the potential for disobedience, though he was always proper and respectful.

The mistress coveted, then, more than faithful service. She coveted his will.

She knew that to take him utterly, to stretch out her hand and grasp that golden idol, would immediately halve his worth. Cancel his matchless quality. Forced fidelity devalues.

But. He would then always be hers. Proscribed to her alone forever through destruction.

She did not hurry to her decision. She enjoyed the glow of the hero she craved, admired the winking diamond dust of his wake. Allowed the glory to accrue to him before claiming it for her own.

And betrayed her best warrior with a kiss on his cheek and a shove down the pit.

When Ferhth was dropped into the dungeon-cave, he brought his golden glow with him, and for an instant the pit was transformed. The slime on the walls glittered like delicate silver webbing' the shadows tossed up by the jagged rough rock became the distinctive intriguing pattern of priceless polished granite.

The stench receded as the cavern held its breath.

"No."

Ferhth spun in his crouch, radiance pin-wheeling off him, brushed onto the sticky cave-walls and captured to fade slowly. "Who's there? Where are you, I can hear you."

Another moan he heard. The light died a degree as his gaze found the littered bones on the floor of the pit, countable perhaps by the empty grinning skulls but numerous.

Wary of the far depths of the uneven earth-bowels where the purity of his spirit could not reach – and what might lurk there in resentful envy – he made his way toward the voice he'd heard.

Iron gleamed like precious fashioned jewelry, studding the polished-granite walls, shadows danced… but as he approached, the light retreated, absorbed by the orange of rust, obscured by the dark smears of blood and filth, spreading even as he watched, golden glow muted by the shadows.

A figure hung pendant from the iron chains, a ghastly half-naked almost-skeleton, too high from the ground to rest, not high enough to squeeze breath from lungs and dry the skin stretched over the bony frame.

"You can't be here," the skeleton breathed, sapphires glinting from skull-sockets. "Not you. Not you too."

"There's a way out, we'll find it," Ferhth promised. "There's always a way out." He didn't hesitate, didn't flinch in examining the prisoner's bonds, link by sticky slimy rough bloody sharp bruising heavy link.

The iron very like the bones of the body it restrained, the bones of the body a cage for that spirit that beat and fluttered and shone.

"Not for me," the prisoner whispered. "You go. You're safer away from me…"

 _I'm afraid I won't be coming with you…_

"You're safer with me." Ferhth braced himself and strained and wouldn't give up. It was never in his nature to give up. The chains relinquished their hold with a sly snap-rattle and the prisoner was loose, draped over Ferhth's shoulder.

"You can't," he breathed, the sigh of breeze moving over old bones, the inward curve of his ribs. "My sentence is interminable. For ever having been born. I will live – but you must leave me."

 _We can't. It's too late. It's too late._

But it was not in Ferhth's nature to leave a comrade chosen. And it was not in the prisoner's strength to break that bond, either. Craving as he did, someone.

Laughter echoed through the misshapen chamber, the sharp clear crystal of the mistress's perfect voice, the breathy barking-cough of the monster kept below.

 _I'm sorry. I thought I'd defied the prophecy. I thought I was in time._

"No… leave me… don't go... please," the prisoner mumbled, clinging and pushing in a confusion of desires, and Ferhth spun in an attempt to find the approaching threat.

He glimpsed it. An enormous black shadow with foot-long fangs and cruelly intelligent eyes – it knew exactly what it was doing – massive shredded wings furled in a sudden whirlwind-

 _Not all will greet the dawn. Some will live… some will die._

Gummy lips spread wide, stretched and split over crooked razor teeth. The maw enclosed them both. A snapping trap of living, breathing nightmare, swallowing one whole –

But only one.

 _Oh, don't worry, dear brother. I won't let you die alone. I will stay and watch over you until the wolves gorge on your carcass and bathe in your blood!_

The creature spewed the prisoner back out. In a spatter of acidic saliva and a tumble of bones and bruises.

As if it knew very well that consumption of this one was impossible, permission from the mistress or no. The prisoner moaned in the depths of a misery far deeper than the cave-dungeon. The creature put out a barbed, forked tongue and licked the prisoner gently -

You're my favorite. You're safe from me.

\- before padding back to the shadows in a crumple of bent wings and bloody prints and fetid drool.

Also satisfied, the mistress smiled.

* * *

 **Facet 2**

The warlock now regarded his pet with grim determination.

With definite wariness, and maybe even calculation. If it could not be trained to obey… he could not risk another such attack. If he did not want to be alone for the rest of his life - if he spent the rest of his life here - the creature must be taught to allow others to enter his cell.

There were no casual caresses, no hopeful encouraging words. He sought to impose his iron will upon the beast, to teach it obedience through forced routines. And if it could not be trained, or trusted… it crossed the warlock's mind, could the dormant threat it posed be neutralized permanently.

It crossed the warlock's mind, had the three deaths been accidental.

Perhaps the creature sensed this. A line had been crossed, or drawn. No longer were the cell-mates trusted fellows. Not even uneasy allies.

The warlock often sat facing the creature, with his back against the bars that still separated him from the blind prince, and even when their banter was light-hearted, humorous, snide, the look on the warlock's face was concentration. As if he weighed his chances of success in doing away with the creature he felt had betrayed him. As if he feared an open move might prompt a retaliation he was unprepared to resist effectively.

The creature was restless, and paced, swinging its heavy head for frequent glances at the warlock. As if it felt the warlock's displeasure was more than casual, temporary, passing. As if it wanted to hold his gaze and force the human to look away in subservience, but knew it wasn't quite capable of it. As if it resisted and resented the warlock's dominance.

It fed off the tension and its strides spoke of coiled aggression, at each step ready to turn and pounce, not quite daring.

The warlock felt it was only a matter of time.

Only a question of, who would strike first.

"What is the matter with you?" the blind prince asked, more often. He had never seen the creature, though occasionally he heard its growls and whimpers, and accepted the warlock's offhand explanations without question.

Because the creature was hard to describe to someone who could not see. And the warlock no longer trusted the creature next to the bars where the prince sometimes put his hand through.

But he was tired. Vigilance unending is exhausting. And the warlock slept.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the tail-end of the creature, the gossamer wings twisted and broken, gruesomely distorted as it wormed and forced its way through the gap in the bars.

To the cell of the blind prince.

"What's that noise?" the prince said. "Are you coming over here? You know you can't – I'm a prince and there are rules –"

 _I'm the king… you can't tell me what to do._

"No!" the warlock yelled, scrambling up from his blanket. He lunged at the creature and it slipped from his fingers. "Look out!" he screamed to his friend, who was slow to roll from his own more luxurious bedding.

Patently annoyed. "How many times haven't I told you, it is not funny to make jokes about my –"

That single, sudden wound. Thrust of fang, deep and fatal. The creature flinched and retreated, as the prince froze in blind disbelief. He said the warlock's name, sounding young and lost and unsure.

The warlock sobbed, trying to squeeze himself through the bars, trying to reach his wounded friend. And the bar named A-King-Cannot-Rely-On-Anyone-But-Himself dissolved, pitching the warlock into his prince's cell at last.

Just as the prince hit his knees. The warlock flung himself across the cell to catch his friend in his arms, as he began to collapse further.

And the prince looked at him.

 _I'm a sorcerer. I have magic. And I use it for you… only for you._

Eyes wide, bloodied fingers reaching to touch the warlock's face in trembling wonder. "Oh, it's you."

"Yes, I'm here. Hold on, you're going to be fine."

 _You're not going to say goodbye._

The prince gave him a lopsided smile, which began to leak blood from the lower corner.

"And someday, you're going to learn how to tell a proper lie."

 _I don't want you to change. I want you to always be you._

His eyes drifted from the warlock's face to take in the details of his cell, resting finally on the bars in complete and devastating comprehension. Before returning to link with the warlock's own tear-filled eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

 _I want to say something I've never said to you before…_

"For keeping me company. It was almost like… freedom. With you."

The warlock couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe.

 _I can't lose him! He's my friend!_

He sobbed and in that brief moment he no longer held a friend, but an empty vessel of clay, broken and dripping its precious contents over the warlock's fingers. He laid the prince – no longer blind – to the carpet-covered stone floor.

And turned to yell in rage at the creature, who again cowered back. But when he threw himself forward, fingers curved like claws and intent upon his pet's death, the thing evaded him, slipping round and leaping over and fastening needle-teeth in his shoulder. He yelled again, this time in pain, as the creature began to drag him out of the prince's cell.

 _Did you really think you could outwit me?_

The Matron stood in the walkway, watching. "Back to your cell," she said, her voice as cold as apathy.

"Why?" he demanded in a shattered sob. "Just kill me too!"

She gave him a wintery smile, and stroked the ring of her keys at her belt. "Oh, no, you I'm keeping. Your sentence is not yet up."

* * *

 **Facet 3**

For a while, Wyrda was easier on the two.

Strangers they fought, and afterward she was sure to praise them and feed them well. She even made a point of petting Merlin, fondling his ears and silky black hair – he endured it, but he didn't seem to seek the attention when she came to their kennel, or after another match. It occurred to her that though she'd raised neither hand nor rod nor even voice to him, she'd lost his trust.

Too intelligent, maybe. Too sensitive. Too late to breed another now, though – the big match was imminent. The championship, and breeders and fighters from across the water were coming with their best animals.

 _Then it is at Camlann that we will make our stand._

It was a glorious affair, if she did say so herself. Years, decades, centuries, she'd been preparing, all culminated in the stone-quarry area, ringed and lit by torchlight.

"Let's see what you've got," Wyrda invited – taunted – the newcomers.

The mastiffs of Camelot took all comers. But the champions were clearly her matched pair, Arthur and Merlin. They were brilliant together, unstoppable – and the best part was their youth; they should anticipate years together.

She began to contemplate taking the two beyond the shores of the island.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Another pair, and not even of the foreigners' pack. Feral - though Wyrda recognized the female as a litter-mate of Arthur's – they attacked Merlin and Arthur as they trotted back to her whistle.

The female lunged, snarling, and though Merlin darted to head her off, Arthur still turned his head, momentarily distracted. Unintentionally exposing his throat to the jaws of the mongrel runt skulking in the bitch's shadow – who didn't hesitate to clamp hard, and bury his teeth in the fur and lifeblood of Arthur's throat.

 _You gave me no choice._

Instinctively the fighter twisted, dropping to use his paws to kick his assailant off. The runt was inexperienced and released his hold – a mistake, as Arthur swiftly turned on him with a snarl and a single snap.

It happened so quickly Wyrda could only watch as the runt bared his teeth one last time and expired – but the golden-bull pup's blood stained his jowls. And Arthur's chest and neck were matted and gory, as he rolled helplessly to his side.

"Finish it!" Wyrda commanded the slender black-haired pup, circling the bitch to exchange vicious warning snarls. She went to Arthur and knelt, running her hand over once-glossy golden hair.

The bitch snapped, and Merlin feinted a cower, a move Wyrda had witnessed before – only Arthur seemed never to fall for it. In a flash from the side, the black-haired pup ended his opponent, too. She sank, choking and snarling and finally stilling, eyes blank and lifeless.

 _This is no mortal blade. Like yours, it was forged in a dragon's breath._

Then Merlin turned – and in another flash was at his partner's side. Squeezing between the golden-bull pup and Wyrda's knee, licking at Arthur's torn throat, his muzzle, snuffling at his ears and ruff. Finally turning a wordless anguished look on Wyrda.

"I can't do anything for him," Wyrda said.

 _All your magic… and you can't save my life._

"Look, the muscle is ruined and he's lost a lot of blood. He'll never fight again, or even breathe properly… He's finished, Merlin. Not worth saving."

A desolate whimper pushed its way up from the black-haired pup's chest.

 _I can. I'm not going to lose you._

"Look, I'll tell you what, you can find another. You can choose a new pup – even help train him, hm?" Wyrda ruffled the silky black hair almost affectionately. Extraordinary breeding, priceless composition and performance.

Merlin pushed his muzzle under Arthur's, worming a little closer.

 _Just… just… just hold me._

Arthur panted a moment, fresh blood welling to stain the golden hair of his chest. He whined… then licked Merlin's ear…

And then he was still.

"Well," Wyrda said, slapping her knees and standing. "That's that." She stood, shaking her head over the bodies of the bitch and the runt, watching as the last of the foreigners and their pack departed, still defeated.

Now what would happen at the championship next year? She wouldn't have the time – or the raw material, she regretted now that she hadn't bred either of them – to train a pair to this caliber. The foreigners might yet win, and then they'd be insufferable.

"Come, Merlin, time to go home."

Merlin didn't move. Slim black body nestled close to the motionless golden one, like true litter-mates.

Wyrda snapped her fingers.

Merlin growled.

She found she didn't dare go take him by the collar and force him to her will.

"Well," she said again. She couldn't shake the feeling that for all intents and purposes, she'd lost both of them. "You know where home is. Your bowl will be full – fresh water – even a new bed and blanket, maybe…"

Distinctly, she felt the pup was ignoring her. She sighed – and shrugged – and turned away.

Behind her, a keening whine rose, slowly and in hopeless misery, to a full mournful howl that set Wyrda shivering.

 _Never be another like you._

It went on into the night, somehow clearer with the distance, on and on and on, an inescapable and unforgettable lament.

 **A/N: Dialogue from ep.5.12 "The Diamond of the Day".**


	5. Emrys

**Epilogue: Emrys**

 _The greatest sorcerer ever to walk the face of the earth._

Emrys. Immortal.

 _A power as ancient as the dragons themselves…_

Older, even _. A son of the earth, the sea, the sky._

 _There is nothing you can do._

No.

…

Shoulders that shook with weeping straightened. A head bowed with grief came up. Blue eyes formerly flooded with tears… cleared.

 _Believe what your heart knows to be true – that you always have been… and always will be._

 _You don't just have magic, you are magic._

Power glowed golden, the sheer magnitude of it unprecedented, unparalleled. But it was more than that.

It was willing sacrifice. Welling blood, falling tears, honest sweat - given and given and given again. Encouragement and exasperation, restlessness curbed and misunderstanding borne all adding up to infinite patience.

…

It was hope deferred, and that balance was owed.

…

It was love.

…

Friend, father, lover lost. Not this one, also.

 _It was said that he could change day to night and turn the tides…_

And Emrys more powerful than that.

…

The Cailleach stopped smiling. The Disir raised their heads in abrupt unison to witness. The Dochraid shrieked in defeat.

The Triple Goddess herself held her breath to observe the son gifted immortality.

…

 _Gweyrc an lif –_ a butterfly or a king.

Emrys exhaled. Gently, deliberately, with significance and intent. And would not be denied.

 _And soon, you shall awaken into the light…_

…

The day rolled back to night, and beyond sunset toward the morning of a new old day. The ripples on the surface of the water slowed, stilled… reversed to flow back.

Shoulders weighted under cold metal stirred with breathing. A head motionless but for the rocking of a boat lifted. Blue eyes thought forever closed… blinked open.

One bowed, one grinned. One stretched out his hand, the other took it, token of fealty exchanged.

The coin was cast anew. Two sides inseparable. And _that_ , for destiny.

* * *

 **A/N: Double thanks for everyone who followed this story, and reviewed! I know it was pretty different…**

 **So next week, I plan to post something that should prove more popular – an early season 1 reveal, four chapters, 2 a week for 2 weeks through November. Titled "Possibility"…**


End file.
